Although the supply of homes for sale was the most it’s been in eight months, the level is still significantly low and helped drive down monthly existing sales.
Homeowners sold 536,000 existing houses during May. Making up the activity were sales of single-family homes, townhomes, condominiums and co-operatives.
Including last month’s transactions, there have been 2.062 million existing home sales that have closed during the first-five months of this year.
The National Association of Realtors was responsible for the data, which was reported on Wednesday.
On a seasonally adjusted basis, the annual rate of existing home sales was 5.43 million last month, dipping for the second consecutive month from a downwardly revised 5.45 million in April. The rate was lower than a downwardly revised 5.60 million in May 2017.
With a U.S. inventory of homes for sale at 1.85 million, the latest supply was 4.1-months — the biggest it’s been since September.
But
NAR Chief Economist Lawrence Yun says supply continues to hold back existing home sales.
“Incredibly low supply continues to be the primary impediment to more sales, but there’s no question the combination of higher prices and mortgage rates are pinching the budgets of prospective buyers, and ultimately keeping some from reaching the market,” Yun stated in the report.
Single-family home sales were off 0.6 percent to 4.81 million.
The seasonally adjusted annual rate in the Midwest was 1.26 million as of May 2018, retreating from the previous month by 2.3 percent– the most of any region. The West fell 0.8 percent to 1.17 million, and the South was off 0.4 percent to 2.32 million.
Only the Northeast was higher: 4.6 percent to 0.68 million.
Home prices averaged $303,500, while the median price was $264,800.
It typically took 26 days to sell a property, no different than the preceding month and a day faster than in May of last year.
First-time buyer share was 31 percent, all-cash share was 21 percent, and distressed share was 3 percent.
